Category: Reviews

Its been a while since I’ve done a tech review, I’ve been missing them since I shut down SimplySimple’s younger sibling SimplyWired, so I’m positively rubbing my hands with glee 🙂 . Its also been a while since I’ve owned a dress watch -about 20 years or so. I gave my gold plated Titan quartz with its lovely calendar comprising small dials for day of week, date and month and moon-phase to my brother as I got tired of it. In addition, I own a Citizen Eco Drive which is my daily driver as my Seiko 5 with the entry level 23 Jewel 7s36C movement runs out of steam over the weekend in which case I’d have to use a watch winder or adjust the Day, date and time every Monday morning -something I don’t like doing… Continue reading Review: Victorinox Alliance Automatic 241666

I love radio. I’ve wanted to be a Ham since I was a kid and ordered numerous resources, however due to cost constraints, nothing worthwhile happened. Later on, I took up electronics and assembled two of my own radios, the old ones -not the very old ones with valves, but the analogue pre-IC ones using transistors, coils and transformers and a polyester gang condensor for the tuner. I have older memories and remember my ex-army uncle from EME who had once given me a gang condenser with plates which used air as its dielectric medium but Iost touch after IC’s became standard and replaced discrete components. Even though I had a Sony ICF-F12S radio, my heart longed for something which used PLL tuning and had a DSP and digital tuning and storage. Continue reading Review: Tecsun PL-380 DSP Radio

Looks like my bug out bag project is jinxed. A couple of years back, my 5.11 Tactical Rush 24 backpack was stolen on a train journey to my brothers house. I was testing its load bearing ability with its Y yoke being a bit uncomfortable in the Indian summers. Now I’m yet unable to choose whether to go in for the Rush 72 or stick to the original plan. In addition the Storm color I wanted (previous one was black) seems ineligible for International shipping. Thankfully, I’ve put the cart before the horse so I have plenty of equipment to review. Once I’ve finalized the list of items that go into my bag, it will be easier for me to take a call on what size of tactical rucksack I’d need. Continue reading Review : Smith & Wesson tactical pen

If you were born in the seventies or early eighties in India, the sound of a radio -which was the only source of entertainment and news then would bring on a wave of nostalgia and rekindle old memories. For me I have additional memories passed down from a generation before and radio is an inseparable part of me. I never became a HAM like I wanted to when I was younger, but my love for radios and electronics never ended. Continue reading Review: Sony ICF-F12S Radio

It has been several years since I gave up plastic. My biggest dilemma at that time was carrying my drinking water without leeching any chemicals into it. On searching the net I finally short listed these two bottles. It was just a matter of who accepted credit card payments and shipped to India -both would also shock my colleagues and keep them passing snide remarks for the next six months or so once the cost of the bottles and the shipping were converted into Indian Rupees… but I planned to buy only one of them, not both -or at least that’s what I thought then… unfortunately the International Shipping doubles the cost of the actual bottle. Continue reading Water Bottle shootout : Klean Kanteen vs Sigg

I had been aware for quite some time that my camping equipment was missing a tools for chopping up firewood into manageable pieces. I did have emergency tools like the excellent shark toothed saw on my Victorinox Swiss champ, and a commando wire saw. However these are basically tools to be used in an emergency and not for regular use. I say this not because they are under performers, but just that they won’t be in peak form when they are needed in an emergency, besides replacing a worn out saw on a Swiss knife would be more expensive than getting a cheap chopper. I transferred those items into my bug out bag even though I sometimes still carry them along when camping. Continue reading Review: The Ganjuwal “Swiss” Khukhuri

When I bought my 40 oz (approx 1.1 liter) Klean Kanteen, I also bought a neoprene jacket made by Built NY from them. It took me quite some time -almost a year to get used to the neoprene jacket (because I was used to carrying my Sigg around) as it was a bit different from the simple zip up jacket on my Sigg made of the same material. It leaves the top 3-4 inches of the bottle uncovered on one side. Then it has this vertical handle, which makes for a great grab handle for drinking but when used to carry the bottle, its like carrying my violin in its case and this gets me a lot of stares -not because it looks bad, but simply because not many people in Delhi carry a stainless steel bottle horizontally in a neoprene jacket.